


Before and After

by Bitterblue



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ten 150 word drabbles, in chronological order, about the female sole survivor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before and After

You're thirteen or fourteen the first time you  _really_  notice you're not quite like everyone else in your class at school. It feels a little like the clouds parting after a storm, the realization that your best friend Jenny is staring at the boy she's had a helpless crush on for two weeks solid in precisely the same way you're staring at  _Jenny_ , but also a little like when you were little and saw the ocean for the first time. You were so excited about it that you ran straight out into the surf. A wave rolled in harder than you'd expected and knocked you down, so your dad had to run out to get you as the current pulled you away from shore. You never really went back to the ocean again after, too scared of drowning to try to swim.

You don't mention it to anyone. Especially Jenny.

* * *

 

Nate's kind and funny and gentle, so when he asks you out on a date after work, you can't come up with a good reason to say no. You're not even sure you want to say no. You smile, though, and you say yes, because you have no real reasons and he's exactly what you want. Or, should want. Or, you're not sure, but he's sweet and he likes you. Which is enough. Probably.

At the end of the night, after you've both had a little to drink and he's made you laugh, genuinely, enough for your sides to be sore from laughing, he walks you home. You know the whole way he's going to kiss you when you get there, and you decide to let him. It feels like drowning: you can't breathe, and you're sure you're being swept out to a sea you can't fathom It's enough. Probably.

* * *

 

Shaun is the culmination of a series of accidents, but the first time you hear him cry you decide it was all worth it to have  _him_. Nate is so proud, and you do love him, even if it's not quite how he loves you. He's a good man. It's been easy to just keep saying yes to him. Yes to dates, yes to sex, yes to marriage, yes to this child. You hope if you say yes enough it will become true.

When Shaun is a few months old, you're pushing him in his stroller near the park. There's a woman with her child on the swings. Your eyes meet, and she smiles faintly before another woman walks over to her. They speak briefly, then scoop up the child and walk in the other direction. One slips her hand into the other's. You aren't breathing. You try to forget.

* * *

 

You think it takes your heart longer to thaw than the rest of you. What you remember is this: sirens, terror, clouds in the distance that you know will never part, Nate carrying Shaun as you run towards shelter, the relief you felt at the decontamination pod you were directed to. And then, cold, terror, incomprehension,  _terror_. Shaun taken. Nate killed. And then, you're awake and cold and damp and everything is coming apart at the seams. And then, you're alive and he's dead and it's all very arbitrary, and you did love him in your way. And then, you realize the weight of his love lifted from your shoulders feels like a relief. You think you should feel guilty, but you don't. But you can't think of much of anything beyond surviving and finding Shaun. But you don't  _want_  to think of much anything beyond surviving and finding Shaun.

* * *

 

This world is nothing like the one you knew, and it makes you profoundly grateful for both what you've lost and what you've gained. Self-defense against looters and raiders had never crossed your mind before. It had never needed to. You lived in a world without looters or raiders. Everything had been very easy, when you simply let it wash over you. But, also, it becomes quickly clear that you're talented at staying alive, at finding information, at making yourself useful in ways you couldn't have imagined. Without quite deciding to do so, you've begun to stand up against the tide that would sweep you under for the first time in your  _very_  long life. Shaun needs you to. It turns out other people do, too.

Belatedly, laying on a dirty mattress without sheets, staring into the profoundly dark sky, you realize that  _you_  need you to stand up, too.

* * *

 

You head to Diamond City mostly out of curiosity. Fenway Park had never held much appeal before the war, but it's at least familiar, if bizarre to see it full of people using it as a home.

She catches your eye before you've even registered it, a loud flurry of of red coat and the most ridiculous sort of reporter costume hat you can imagine, worn entirely unironically with a broad, warm smile. She wants your help. A lot of people want your help, it seems. She touches your arm, a thoughtless, throw-away gesture, as she leans in to smirk at you, and you miss what she says because all you can hear is the pounding of your own heartbeat.

In the filthy room you rent that night, you try not to think about how no one has touched you kindly since before the war. You dream of that hat.

* * *

 

It's never happened so fast before. You're pretty sure you were better at ignoring this feeling, this existential sort of pull towards another person, before the war, but Piper seems to know just how to draw you in. It's exhilarating. It's terrifying. You feel like you're on the edge of something vast with her, afraid to move because it might stop. Or it might continue. Either way, you find yourself seeking reassurance as you creep through the dark wastelands together.

"Are things okay between us?" you ask. Her fingertips press lightly to your shoulder blade briefly, warm and fleeting.

"Of course, Blue." It's enough. Probably. You look back at her, over your shoulder, and her eyes are dark and unreadable. You reach for her, thinking to touch her shoulder in return. She takes your hand, instead, holding tightly. You walk together, quiet, through the ruins of where you grew up.

 

* * *

It was always easier to blame your shortcomings on other people. You suppose that makes you very human. You were afraid of the consequences, so you'd let other people wash over you and shape your life for you. In a way, in your search for Shaun, you still are. But, still, with Nate gone (and you are sorry he is, when you think of him), with your parents gone, with all the people who made you think you needed to be some fundamentally different person to be worthy of their time  _gone_  and you the sole survivor, you have the space to find your own way for the first time you can remember.

If Piper has a problem with you liking women ( _liking_   _Piper_ , part of you shouts), she hasn't mentioned it. She's mentioned everything else, so you feel like it would have come up. But it hasn't. Not yet.

* * *

 

You daydream an awful lot for someone fighting for their survival all the time. It's a bad habit, probably. On the surface it seems better than jet or psycho, but you think it might get you killed just as quick. Despite your self-chastisement, you still find yourself thinking about the future while you pick your way through brambles. Thinking about Shaun. Thinking about what kind of family you'll build together, how you can raise him to be a good person in this post-war world. If you find him.  _When_  you find him.

Piper stumbles next to you, and you reach over to steady her. She grins at you gratefully. As your thoughts drift again, you notice all your ideas of what your family might look like have Piper still by your side. You're not sure she'd mind, but you're not sure she'd approve, either. You don't say anything. Not yet.

* * *

 

It's cold, even at Piper's place in Diamond City, in late November. You're exhausted after clearing out a safehouse for the Railroad, you've made less progress than you'd hoped finding Shaun, and your boots are wet on the inside. You huddle on Piper's bed while she paces, trying to work out where else you could try looking, rambling through lists of places aloud.

"Blue," she says as she sits, her hands finding yours and squeezing earnestly. "We'll find him. I promise." Her voice cracks a little.

"I know," you say, because you believe her. Because you want to believe her. She smiles, and it warms you through. You don't think it through, not really, as you lean in and kiss her softly. You are so warm as she kisses you back, warm and safe. She's laughing a little into your mouth, this bubble of incredulity and desire and joy. It's enough.


End file.
